Small Town Houlton Maine Has 560 Apartment Rentals With 2% Vacancy Rate!

     In some real estate markets, you start out with a home with apartment income from an extra unit or two to leap into the home ownership arena.  Or you forget it, content to rent yourself for a time to save money in your entry level job unless you have the means to buy your first  single family home. In Houlton Maine, less than two percent vacancy and just over 560 units means being a landlord does not require you have to give away free microwaves and offer bend over backwards incentives to please rent from me and fill this one of many empty units.  There is more demand than supply and often when I suggest to a couple a little low on income producing power to consider an apartment house, heels dig in.  Bad tenants, horror stories about the guy who trashed every unit he went into and difficulty getting him out even thought destruction and lack of rent payment were going on in the meantime.  I ask them a simple question.  "You'd be a good tenant right?"  Heads nodding up and down.  I tell them I would be a good renter too...not abusive, not wasting the heat if heated. I, like them,  I would just want a decent, safe, clean place to rent and that I work for a living so really only eating and sleeping there...not using the place causing extra wear and tear.  So once this buyer sees that there are two good renters right in the office at this moment...the couple and I...you explain that you can work to find good tenants. Often the nice apartment that is reasonably priced that you find the tenant after two years is relocating, many times is the source for your next tenant without even having to advertise.  The good tenant you had, that you fixed items for and let paint the kitchen their favorite color with them supplying the labor / you the paint has a lead.  Someone who visited the apartment and was friend of the tenant lets them know if they ever move, this apartment and the landlord that comes with it are who I want to link up with. 

   Many landlords may not do repairs, not make efforts to make utilities more reasonable and who just doesn't plow snow on time or at all. In defense, this D minus landlord may have way way too many units to take care of but not enough to hire a manager to help tinker on them and do the public relations needed to keep every one happy. Or he may have the attitude he is doing them a big favor to offer a flea bitten, run down unit and stop your whining about no hot water all the time.  He'll get the trash moved when he gets around to it and the rats it attracts is not getting him hopping mad. Haul it yourself if your knickers are in a knot. Geeesh. Poor apartments, and lousy landlord attitudes attract folks that are not going to take care of the rent on time and not going to treat the place with respect.  The landlord doesn't, why should the renter? It is not a good marriage. The landlord and tenant have a need for each other and should work together.  This real estate broker talk sometimes gets the buyer to consider being able to buy now with rental income from the second floor apartment making over half the payment.  Then when you explain the fringe benefits like plowed driveway paid for by the apartment house, the dumpster you can use but deductable expense from the apartment income, and so on. 

     Lots of perks to living in an apartment house filled with tenants that appreciate you and work together to keep the property cared for and respected.  You only hear about the bad renters and not that often about the majority that are good.  When you can buy a quality, attractive four unit in the mid $50's, with a garage, open porch and beautiful hardwood floors, modern kitchens and baths, applianced....why would you be scared to own something that makes you money each month ?  Eventually you can move from it to that single family home or into another apartment house that works hard paying the overhead. Or expand you unit into another as the family grows and the need for more bedrooms and  the fisher price toys and johnny jump up hanging from the doorway come into your living space from an overhead flying stork. Find out about Maine landlord and apartment rental laws, links and rules on security deposits, lead base paint disclosures and eviction procedures.